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Discover the Book - Feb. 10, 2009

2017Feb 10

COMMENTS

The Divine Witness

Our world is filled with mysteries. For thousands of years humans have lived, left their accomplishments and died. Only in our day of global travel and television has the magnitude of these ancient mysteries been confirmed.

·Who constructed the megaliths of Europe that number in the tens of thousands, each stone weighing 20 plus tons?

·How were the 16 to 65 ton faces of Easter Island moved and raised?

·How were the pyramids built of 2.3 million blocks totaling 6.5 million tons of stone, 481 feet high without modern machinery?

·How did Herod move 30 foot long and ten foot wide dressed stones of up to 120 tons into place for his Jerusalem temple, so perfectly a knife blade can't go between them?

·What happened to the lost colony in early colonial America that was found deserted without a trace?

·How did TWA Flight 811 explode in July of 1996?

These are only a few of the mysteries of the world. None were witnessed well enough to explain the mysteries that surround them.

The source that gives ultimate light is the sublimely described Scriptures. Psalm 19:7-9 has six synonyms for God's Word and twelve qualities ascribed to it. Each of these 18 descriptions of the Word of God is an inspired photo of the divine power of God's Word. It is sufficient. It can absolutely meet its purpose!

HIS SURE TESTIMONY MAKES WISE (v. 7b) = The Word of God is the Divine Witness. THE DIVINE WITNESS: 9 the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. God's testimony is absolutely trustworthy.

Now, what is the second claim to Divine sufficiency? Psalm 19:7b The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple . (KJV)

"Sure" nemanah in Hebrew means 'firmness, certainty , pillar, support'. It is also passive in form so it conveys not just firmness but confirmedness!

What is God's Word saying? It is worthy of being absolutely followed! Something happens when a person at last finds a firm object to hold onto. Remember the frightened disciples? Frank Morrison describes them for us. "Yet the material from which we have to derive this dynamic force consists of a habitual doubter like Thomas, a rather weak fisherman like Peter, a gentle dreamer like John, a practical tax gatherer like Matthew, a few sea faring men like Andrew and Nathaniel, the inevitable women, and at the most two or three others."

There they sit, shivering with fear, seething with doubt, overcome by despair. John 20:19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. (KJV)

Now look at Acts 2:14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: (KJV) Look at the change!

Again Frank Morrison says: "Now the peculiar thing about this phenomenon is that not only did it spread to every single member of the party of Jesus of whom we have any trace, but they actually brought it to Jerusalem and carried it with inconceivable audacity into the most keenly intellectual center of Judea, against the ablest dialecticians of the day, and in the face of every impediment a brilliant and highly organized camarilla could devise. AND THEY WON!

Within 20 years the claims of these Galilean peasants had disrupted the Jewish church and impressed itself upon every town on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean from Caesarea to Troas. In less than 50 years it had begun to threaten the peace of the Roman Empire.

When we have said everything that can be said about the willingness of certain types of people to believe what they want to believe, to be carried away with their emotions, and to assert as fact that which originally reached them as hearsay, we stand confronted with the greatest mystery of all, WHY DID THEY WIN?"

Of course we know! They had come face to face with the divine Witness. A sure testimony, they saw the risen Christ! From John 19:19's gloom, to Acts 2's boldness and confrontation at all costs. You hold the same divine witness in your hands this morning. And by faith it lives in your heart. It is God's Word and it is sure. Now back to Ps 19:7 and the last stanza to the divine witness. Those 4 words: "making wise the simple". This is profound.

First of all 'pethi' is a person that is naive or literally, one who has an "open door mind". He goes with whatever hits him just then. And changes with the next wind. What can the absolutely true testimony of God on any topic do for the inexperienced, open door minded person we all so often are?

God can take the open door and with His sure testimony make them wise "skilled in the art of holy living".

In the Scripture God is always the source of this shakam wisdom. To Greeks wisdom was facts; to Hebrews it was EXPERIENCE!

So God by His sure testimony can make all who come skillful in the art of divine living!

How? By bowing before the Author, the Divine Teacher, and yielding to His testimonies as the Divine Witness! Here we meet the Divine Witness. This witness is giving a testimony in court (that is the sense of this Hebrew word). This word "testimony" is always and only used of the Lord. It speaks to the reality of the Almighty God being the best witness of any event. What are some events that He has witnessed about?

·THE BEGINNING (Genesis 1-2) No theory, no mystery, God was the Divine Witness of what happened at creation. Listen to the Divine Witness as He speaks as an eye witness you can absolutely trust.

oFROM THE DAWN OF THE UNIVERSE (Before time began, before matter existed, before the forces that bind our cosmos together were instituted by the Creator - HE SPEAKS) Genesis 1:1-4 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. (KJV)

·FROM THE THRONE OF THE ALMIGHTY Isaiah 40:12-31 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

If you don't listen to Him now, you will later. Poem Luke 6:46 Ye Call Me Lord And Master And Obey Me Not. from cathedral in Lubeck, Germany: